2 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 66 minutes. Written by: Patrick Chapman. Directed by: Mark J. Thompson. Produced by: Sharon Gosling. Performed by: Wendy Padbury, Nicholas Briggs.
THE PLOT:
New companion Zoe Heriot is frightened after viewing the record of the Doctor's last encounter with the Daleks on the mind scanner. The Doctor promises, however, that the adventure in question marked the Daleks' final end.
He then takes Zoe and Jamie to Lavonia, a city built into an asteroid. Lavonia is neutral territory, and it has therefore been designated the site of peace talks between the Xantha Empire and the Tibari Republic.
But not everyone wants peace. Professor Atrika, a rogue Tibari scientist, has developed a device that will allow him to mentally project a subject and also to control that person. All he needs is a person with a strong mind, meaning the arrival of the Doctor and Zoe couldn't have been timed more perfectly.
Atrika selects Zoe for the first practical test of this technology, projecting her onto the flagship carrying the Tibari president. Her assignment is to assassinate the president, which will be blamed on Xanthe. And his co-conspirators?
The Daleks, who are not quite as dead as the Doctor had led Zoe to believe!
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: Quickly recognizes Atrika's technology as being of Dalek origin. He tries to reason with Atrika, to make the scientist see that his allies cannot be trusted. When the Daleks learn that he is present and come crashing into Atrika's laboratory, the Doctor plays for time, reminding them that they will need his mind to properly work their machine and bring their plans to fruition.
Zoe: Tries with all her will to resist Atrika's control, particularly after she meets the Tibari president and is impressed by her. She manages to force out a couple of veiled statements, but Atrika's grip on her mind is too tight for any direct warning. As the assassination nears, she is horrified by her own actions even as she's helpless to stop herself.
Jamie: Zoe pronounces him "brave," but she also observes that something about him leaves her wanting to protect him. He spends most of the story being little more than present, an extra hostage for Atrika and then the Daleks to wield against the Doctor, though he does get a tiny bit to do at the very end.
Atrika: The placeholder villain for the story's first half. He's worked his evil genius (TM) on Dalek technology so that he can astral project a perfect assassin. When confronted about why he wants to sabotage peace, he just sneers something about how "democracy takes too long!" He was previously close to the president that he now wants to assassinate, and there's a hint that he's jealous that she didn't take him with him when she found political success - but nothing is done with that element, because that might have been somewhat interesting.
The Daleks: Nicholas Briggs does his usual splendid job, varying his pitch to distinguish between the different Daleks. Unfortunately, that's about the only good thing I can say about the Daleks here, as this is a lot closer in quality to the horrible Victory of the Daleks than to the excellent Power or Evil. For one thing, these are particularly stupid Daleks. The Doctor needs to remind them that their plans require that both he and Atrika remain alive. They later indicate their plans to betray an ally right in front of that person, because that couldn't possibly go wrong later. Finally, at the climax, they spend what seems like an eternity screeching about exterminating without ever actually... you know... doing it. Oh, and the total Dalek body count amounts to a couple of unnamed redshirts.
THOUGHTS:
I have very little positive to say about Fear of the Daleks, but I'll start with the one positive that I realized while typing out the synopsis: the bones of this story aren't inherently awful. Certainly, there's not much here that's original, but the premise could have made for a decent action thriller.
Too bad about everything else.
One of the first things that I noticed was the bad dialogue. "We'll worry about your megolomania later!" the Doctor says to Atrika - which might be OK if he was puncturing the scientist's ego, but as delivered here, he's speaking in full earnest. Later, the Daleks go into a rant about fear that plays out as unintentionally comical.
Then there are the clichés. A character has a chance to kill the Daleks, but refuses to because it would make that person as bad as they are. Another character performs a noble self-sacrifice... which, with very rare exceptions, is probably my very least favorite Doctor Who trope.
And, of course, there's a giant hole in the story's own logic. Atrika and the Daleks need minds of the caliber of the Doctor and Zoe for their plans to reach fruition. The Daleks even hold off on killing the Doctor because they accept that they need him. But it's not as if they were expecting him. In fact, it's a plot point that they are surprised when he shows up. So here's the question: Exactly what were they planning to do before they turned up?
Of course, never mind any of that, because the climax shows us that the machine can project the Daleks just fine. So then the question becomes: Since they didn't actually need the Doctor after all, why didn't they just kill him when they had the chance? The answer, of course, is that then there wouldn't have been a story. Not there's much of one anyway...
OVERALL:
Fear of the Daleks is bad. The story itself might have made for a reasonably entertaining runaround, but everything goes wrong in the execution: plot holes, bad dialogue, and clichés that had overstayed their welcome back when the Troughton era was actually airing on television!
It's sad to consider that this was the first-ever Second Doctor audio. Thankfully, better would come before too long. Even more thankfully, the rest of the Companion Chronicles from that first set were of a very high standard, which helped to offset the stink of this rotten turkey.
It's probably not Big Finish's very worst title - but it would have to rate as a pretty strong contender.
Overall Rating: 1/10.
Previous Television Story: The Wheel in Space
Next Television Story: The Dominators
Search Amazon.com for Doctor Who
2nd Doctor Audio Review Index
2nd Doctor Television Review Index
To receive new review updates, follow me:
On Twitter:
On Threads:
No comments:
Post a Comment